26 th July: 9 th Sunday after Pentecost

A word of caution!

‘Fool’ is a word that calls for caution. Indeed, it is a near obsolete word in this age of political correctness. Like words such as ‘nincompoop, and ‘imbecile’, ‘fool’ has been exorcised from social discourse. In our speaking today, as contrasted with yesteryear, we are now more person-sensitive, inclusive and pluralistic, at least to a degree! Given the violence that insulting words can trigger, we are somewhat a work in progress.

Anyhow, we must distinguish the word ‘fool’, as familiar to us, from its Hebrew meaning. In English, a fool is a person who acts silly or one who is duped, or, in the old pejorative, redundant sense, someone considered not very intelligent. In Hebrew, however, fool is a word for the unbelieving, the irreligious and godless. Most scholarly comment favours the view that, when the writer criticises fools, he has in view those whose actions betray their beliefs. It is not theoretical or philosophical atheism that disturb his peace, it is the blatant neglect of the poor and the oppression of the weak. Practical atheism is the hypocritical face of religion. Outside the witness of the Bible, we could give many historical examples. Maybe the most glaring was the ownership of slaves by Christians; or, in more recent times, committed Christians who have been slow to believe in gender equality. In many ecclesiastical institutions exclusion, discrimination and abuse have blasphemed the holy name of God. In dark practices, the justice and the love of God have been betrayed.

Practical unbelief can afflict any religion. The Koran repeatedly affirms God is All Merciful, All Compassionate. But this is a far cry from the unholy actions of Islamic terrorists. In the New Testament, compassion informs all that Jesus says and does. But the crusades, the religious wars of the seventeenth century and the sectarian violence in Ireland in the twentieth are a far cry from the ways of Jesus – the Prince of Peace. To bring the question home to our hearts: which of us has not failed Jesus’ teaching on love and forgiveness? It is easy to shy away from costly love; it is difficult to really believe that love is the source of all joy.

But, perhaps the psalmist has not so much practical disbelief in mind, as downright unbelief. The fools “say in their hearts that there is no God”. This seems a deliberate rejection of God, a total repudiation of Divine sovereignty. In the early verses of the psalm, the author sees this radical rejection everywhere. “They are all alike perverse; there is no one who does good, no, not one” (v3). It is a sweeping summary and condemnation. In the New Testament, Paul repeats this bleak assessment (Romans 3:10), and it has shaped thinkers from Augustine to Barth. For them, there is no hidden, meritorious self, waiting to be discovered; a heart of darkness is at the core of humanity. All are lost apart from grace. The psalmist may be thought of as a progenitor of this bleak view.

It seems to me, however, that we can read this psalm with excessive pessimism. A harsh reading excludes the tentative, the night-time believers like Nicodemus, those who cannot in honesty go public with their faith. An exclusive spirit has always pervaded certain strands in Christianity. Perhaps, it is a wider human phenomenon than that which pertains to religion. There is a frame of mind that thinks in proverbial black and white terms: in or out, winners or losers, for us or against us. A mellow reading, in contrast, leaves room for questioning, for doubt, for a via media between unbelief and certainty. Pope Benedict recognised this when he asked for understanding of the complexity of many people’s lives and for patience with people struggling with ultimate questions of truth. He was thinking particularly of agnostics: he called them “pilgrims of truth”, “pilgrims of peace”. What beautiful expressions!

Agnostics probably comprise the majority of the people we rub shoulders with every day. They are integral to the mosaic of belief and unbelief in the twenty-first century. The genesis of modern agnosticism lies in the Victorian crisis of belief. Traditional beliefs were shaken by science, by historical discoveries about the Bible and by increased knowledge about other religions and cultures. Often, Victorian believers went through a rite of passage from religious certainty to doubt and uncertainty. The novelist George Eliot may be thought of as their patron saint. She is an icon for all who have experienced the death of formal religion. Having renounced the faith of her evangelical upbringing, George Eliot found little to attract her amongst free-thinkers. A compassionate spirituality, moved by “other people’s wants and sorrows”, was the main stay of her life. Agnostics, past or present, can hardly to be equated with the psalm’s “fools”, although fanciful fundamentalists and doughty champions of orthodoxy may lump them together, as one mass of infidelity.

With these caveats, let us return to the text. As the psalm develops, it becomes a meditation on the power, influence and fate of those in the “heart of darkness”. The most damning comment we find is that where there is no knowledge of God, evil reigns and “people are eaten like bread” (v4). The author is enraged, but not panicked. Right will prevail! The fear in the eyes of the oppressor is a sign of judgement already at the door. “They shall be in great terror for God is with the company of the righteous” (v5). Interestingly, the psalm depicts a righteous remnant balancing his earlier sweeping judgement about universal depravity. Now, and in the future, their evil oppressors will have to reckon with divine sovereignty; God cannot forever be winked at. This was the conviction of the wisdom tradition out of which the writer of the psalm speaks. Wisdom literature, such as the Book of Proverbs, offers the voice of instruction. But, tragically, it meets with no acceptance in the hearts of fools. Still, there is hope, but it is hope for the poor. The “Lord is their refuge” (v6). The meditation ends confident that there is deliverance for Israel. Zion, the hill on which Jerusalem stands, is a symbol of the salvation to come; there, on holy ground, Jacob will rejoice and Israel will be glad (v7). Like its cognate, Psalm 53, this short psalm finishes with a triumphal expectation of redemption.

We appreciate the writer’s vision of justice for the poor and his deep conviction about the sovereignty of God. From the further perspective of the New Testament, we would universalize the passage; divine deliverance is at hand, not just for one people, Israel, but for all the oppressed of the Earth. We would radicalise the possibility of redemption even for the wicked and godless. In the divine economy of grace, in the redemptive love of the suffering Messiah, there is hope at the worst. We glimpse that prophetically in today’s Old Testament lesson. David committed adultery and, to cover his tracks, he arranged the death of Uriah. Nevertheless, there was a place for David within God’s mercy, when he sought it in tears. That is the key! The divine love is wider than the measures of our minds, but it remains hedged in until the heart is broken and the spirit contrite. As Christians, we believe redemption begins here and now, but it is never exhausted by the here and now. Archbishop William Temple remarked: the Christian is a short-term pessimist, but a long-term optimist. The mystery is beyond our knowing, but not beyond our imagining. Moreover, the mystery is accessed by suffering love: patient as it is active, ever hopeful even in defeat. In the thought of the psalmist, it is fools who suppose otherwise. A word of caution, indeed!